Big Rise for F.B.I. in Antiterror War

The big winner in the president's budget among law enforcement agencies -- as it has been since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with state and local police agencies again facing major cutbacks in federal assistance.

The budget proposes an 11 percent increase in financing for the F.B.I., to $5.6 billion. The proposal continues the sharp rise in F.B.I. financing since 2001, when the bureau's budget was $3.3 billion.

The new money, the White House said, will help the F.B.I. to increase money for counterterrorism investigations, double the size of its Hostage Rescue Team, hire an additional 500 intelligence analysts to assist in counterterrorism, and provide an additional $75 million for the Terrorist Screening Center, a project that seeks to consolidate government watch lists but has been beset by coordination problems.

Some members of Congress have sharply criticized the way the F.B.I. has spent its money, particularly in the lagging, half-billion-dollar effort to shore up its computer capabilities. But the White House said increasing money for the F.B.I. was crucial to the Justice Department's highest priority: "the detection, prevention, investigation and prosecution of terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens and interests."

The budget also includes about $2.4 billion for state and local grant programs to pay for things like gun enforcement programs and local antiterrorism training.

But as the administration has done for the last several years, the budget moved to curtail sharply spending for some local law enforcement programs. Cutbacks in the COPS program, a Clinton-era favorite that provides money for local police hiring but that the Bush administration said had "not demonstrated" its effectiveness in reducing crime, would save $635 million a year. The elimination of other local law enforcement grant programs, intended for areas like illegal immigration and police technology, will save hundreds of millions of dollars more, the administration said.